MAG has called for more humanitarian support to Syria at a UK parliamentary briefing hosted by the Syria All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG).
The call for support came as senior MAG representatives met officials from the White Helmets – the Syrian Civil Defence – in Syria to discuss the need for a comprehensive and co-ordinated plan to clear the country of landmines and explosive ordnance.
The meeting in Damascus was part of a range of measures being taken by MAG to explore opportunities to expand its existing operations in north east Syria to other areas of the country.
The fall of the regime on December 8 has drastically changed the operating environment in Syria and opened new opportunities to address urgent humanitarian challenges.
Together with Action For Humanity and the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), MAG provided parliamentarians with an overview and first-hand insights of the challenges the country faces, urging parliamentarians to support humanitarian and development work, including mine action, at this critical time.
MAG’s Community Liaison Manager Fatima Abdi – joining via video from Syria – stressed the need to address the massive levels of landmine and explosive ordnance contamination that MAG has been responding to for almost a decade.
Parliamentarians heard how Syria consistently records one of the world’s highest casualty rates from landmines and explosive remnants of war. Accidents have risen by more than 300% in December compared to the previous month as people move into unfamiliar areas or try to return to their homes.
Beyond the threat to human life, Ms Abdi also emphasised how high contamination remains a significant hurdle to the country’s economic recovery and development, particularly in agriculture and infrastructure rehabilitation.
"A lot of agricultural land in Syria is not being used and has been abandoned because of the presence of explosive devices,” Ms Abdi said.
Ms Adbi also shared details about the impact of MAG’s longstanding projects in Syria. MAG teams have been conducting survey, clearance and risk education activities in North East Syria since 2016 and was at the forefront of the mine action response during the conflict with ISIS.
“In that time, MAG has reached more than 880,000 people with explosive ordnance risk education messaging, destroyed more than 81,000 explosive items and released more than 48 million square metres of land,” noted Ms Abdi.
MAG reaffirmed its commitment to working in partnership with local communities in Syria, and called on the UK Government to increase humanitarian support to Syria and integrate mine action within the response.
Learn more about MAG’s work in Syria here.
